


The rock in a storm

by samariumwriting



Series: Dimidue Week [3]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dimidue Week (Fire Emblem), Gen, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Pre-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 12:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20425739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: Dimitri had only one scrap of hope remaining in the wake of the tragedy. The boy, the one for whom he'd thrown himself in front of a sword. If he was alive... He had to be alive.





	The rock in a storm

“Where is he?” Dimitri asked. It was the first thing he cared about when he felt properly conscious again. He had to know he absolutely had to know what had happened to the boy. He’d seen everyone else go, he didn’t need to be told about all of that (he didn’t want to think about it. It was hard to process all the sorrow). He just wanted to know about the boy.

“Who, your Highness?” Gustave had been by his bedside for...days? Dimitri didn’t know how long he’d been drifting in and out of sleep. Each time, he didn’t get enough rest, shocked awake by the sight of- of everything. “There were no-”

“The Duscur boy,” he said. Gustave pursed his lips. No no no no no not him too. Please. If he was the only one...he didn’t know how he could stand that. Knowing he’d failed to save the person he fought to protect the hardest.

“Your Highness, the people of Duscur were the ones conducting the attack.”

“There was a boy,” Dimitri said firmly. “He was a bit taller than me. I think he lived nearby, he wasn’t armed, he was caught up in all of it and I-” His voice was shaking. He needed that boy to be okay. He needed it more than anything.

“There was a boy with you when we found you,” Gustave said. “His injuries were grave, but I have not checked on his condition recently.”

“I need to see him,” he said immediately, moving to push himself up in bed. he had to check that he was okay. He had to know that he was alive. He had to.

“Your Highness, you sustained a very serious head injury and terrible wounds along your back,” Gustave protested. “Now is not the time to be-”

“I can walk,” he said, though admittedly he still felt very shaky and moving was more painful than it should be. But he needed to see the boy from Duscur. “I will walk until I find him, so tell me where he is.”

“Your Highness, please-”

Dimitri swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood on shaky feet. He shivered, out of bed for the first time in days. He had no shirt, only bandages wrapped around his back and loose trousers. “Tell me where he is, Gustave. Tell me now.”

“You are not well, your Highness, please get back into-” he was cut off when he tried to block Dimitri’s way to the door, only to be met by him shoving the much older and much larger knight out of his way. Dimitri looked down at his hands. Gustave was staring at him. It had been a while since he’d used so much of his strength like that.

“Tell me where he is,” he repeated. “Th-that’s an order, Gustave.” He felt bad the moment he said it. He only had the authority to give Gustave orders because everyone else who did was dead. He shouldn’t be using that to his own advantage but he needed to know. He needed to see him.

Gustave gave him a long, sad look and sighed. “As you wish, your Highness,” he said. “I must insist that you go back to bed while I ask someone else to tell me where he is. Please, conserve your strength.”

Dimitri looked between the door, Gustave, and the bed. He was still weak; that much he knew. Gustave’s advice was probably sound, and there was no use wandering aimlessly. “Okay,” he said. Gustave took his arm as he shakily made his way back. Thinking on it, if he’d come to any stairs in his search he probably wouldn’t have been able to go any further.

“I will be back soon,” he said. “With the boy, if he is better able to walk than you.” With that, he left Dimitri alone again. He wished the light coming in through the windows wasn’t fading. He didn’t want to be left alone with the shadows creeping everywhere, the ghosts knocking at the windows.

There was a sound of fire. A sound of screaming. Scream upon scream upon cry as Glenn’s (Glenn was only seventeen years old. Dimitri was the one who cut his life so short) face came into view, youthful and so pained at the height of a pile of bodies cut off in the middle of a sob when he realised he was never going-

“Your Highness?” The words cut through the sound of flames licking at his face. The screams faded into the background. Gustave was stood at the doorway, and Dimitri hadn’t even laid back down since he left. Where had the gap in time gone?

But more important than Gustave’s presence or the softening of the shadows in the dark corners of his room was the figure behind him. He was almost up to Gustave’s shoulders in height, broad, with bandages visible on his shoulders and arms. But most importantly, he was alive.

Dimitri moved without thinking. Legs still shaky, his eyes stinging with happy tears mixed with the fearful ones from only moments ago, he got out of bed and stumbled towards the boy whose name he didn’t even know yet. “I- you’re alive,” he managed. “You’re alive.”

“Your Highness, careful-” Gustave warned, but Dimitri was far beyond caring about any of that. He didn’t care if it made the wounds on his back burn, he threw his arms around the one person who’d survived. The one person he’d managed to save.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, oh Goddess, I-” He couldn’t stop the tears. He had cried rather a lot during the times he’d been conscious in the last few days, but nothing like this. It was just one person, just one life stacked against the tens of others, but it was everything to him.

Tentatively, slowly, the boy returned the embrace, patting him on the back with gentle hands. He carefully avoided where the bandages were wrapped tightest. He didn’t say a word, barely even made a sound, but he was there. He was breathing. This close, Dimitri could hear his heartbeat. He was alive, and that was what mattered.

Dimitri would later learn that the boy’s name was Dedue, that his mother had been with him when they were caught in the attack. By the time he was well enough to return to Duscur, the suppression had already started and there was no home for him to return to. Dedue would come to be Dimitri’s reason to cling to sanity while the ghosts wailed at the door.

But none of that even occurred to Dimitri when he stood there with Dedue in his arms for the second time. That time, under much happier circumstances; a reunion. A reunion that marked the beginning of something far larger than a grieving child and the only person he’d managed to save from an early grave.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) if you have any thoughts, please leave a comment, or feel free to say hi on twitter (@samariumwriting)


End file.
